Over the past several decades, the cosmetic industry has embraced the use of plants and plant products in a variety of cosmetic formulations and products. Although this trend is expected to continue, there is a need for more refined and higher quality botanical ingredients that consistently exhibit characteristics that are appealing to the cosmetic industry and consumers. Some of these appealing bioactive characteristics include anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity. Coloration, safety, compatibility, and increased shelf life are also valuable characteristics of cosmetic formulations derived from botanical ingredients.
The cosmetic industry as a whole has increased its support of efforts to develop and market “natural” cosmetic formulations using a host of single and blended botanical ingredients that are currently available to the industry. This approach differs from the synthetic ingredient-based approach that has allowed the cosmetic industry to develop cosmetics with consistent product integrity, performance, and shelf life of raw material ingredients. One of the major deterrents toward the use of botanical ingredients is the inconsistency of the performance and stability of the ingredients, especially with regard to bioactive botanical ingredients. Many of the bioactive botanical cosmetic ingredients now used as ingredients in cosmetic formulations exhibit lost potency, odor deviations, unwanted darkening in coloration, and undesirable sedimentation. These negative attributes increase the risk of microbiological contamination and proliferation, instability, and safety concerns with regard to the final products made from the bioactive botanical ingredients.
In order to ensure quality, safety, and consistency, the cosmetic industry has developed and implemented various standard operating procedures and strict specification controls for all incoming raw materials for use in cosmetic formulations. Most, if not all, of the current botanical extracts fail to comply with the increasing controls and consistency parameters of the cosmetic industry. Current plant extraction methods limit product specification parameters leaving many windows of variability for quality, performance, and compatibility. In addition, current extraction methods fail to deliver the full spectrum of activities that exist within plant cells. Thus, the full potential of botanical-based cosmetic formulations is not being realized due to the inadequacy of the extraction methods for bioactive botanical cosmetic ingredients.
Many of the current methods for extracting bioactive components from plants involve techniques that are harmful to the plant tissue or the bioactive components of interest contained in that tissue, or both. Further, many of the current extraction and separation methods yield crude botanical extracts that contain biological or chemical contaminants that can cause a loss of bioactivity potency, increased cytotoxicity, and decreased shelf life. Further, in order to yield more refined botanical extracts, current extraction methods often require the use of harsh chemical solvents.
Thus, there is a need for a method of extracting bioactive botanical compositions that preserves the bioactivity of the composition and that yield consistent results from lot-to-lot. Further, botanical compositions that are able to meet the industry standards with respect to shelf life, cytotoxicity, quality, and performance are needed in the cosmetic industry.
The present invention is directed to overcoming these deficiencies in the art.